The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1887-08-12
TALMAGE'S SERMON.

TALMAGE'S SERMON,
The Heavenly Existence Not . One
Of Idleness.
Occupations ~ Many and Varied In the
Celestial World - Upea the Earth
"A BeautiFal Word Picture
II the Future.
Rev. +. Dewitt Talmags took for the
ubject Of his third sermon at The Hamp.
tons the "Employments Of Heaven" his
text being:
Now 1t came to pass In the thirtieth year, in
the fourth moath, in the NTH day of the month.
- was among the captives By the river Of
Chebar, that the Heavens were opened.-Eze-
kiel LII
Ezekiel, with others, had been OF.
patriated, and while in foreign slavery
was standing on the banks Of the royal
canal which he and o:her serfs had been
condemned 70 dig by the order Of Nebu-
chAdnezzar-this royal canal, in the text
called the river Of Chebar; the illustrious
exile had visions Of Heaven. Indeed, n is
almost alwe-s SO that the brightest visions
Of Heaven come not to those who are on
mountain top Of prosperity, but to some
John on desolate Patmos, or to some Paul
in Mamertime dungeon, or to some. Ezekiel
standing on the banks Of ditch he had
been compelled to dig-yea, to the weary,
to the heart-broken, to those whom sorrow
has banished.
The text is very particular to give us the
exact time Of the vision. It was in the
thirtieth year, and in tho fourth month,
and in the fifth day of the month. So you
have had visions of earth you shall
never forget. You remember the
year, you remember the month,
you remember the day, you remember the
hour. Why may not we have some such
vision this morning, and it be in the sixth
month and in the fourth day Of the month.
The question is often silently asked,
though perhaps never audibly propounded:
'What are our departed Christian friends
doing now!" The question is more easily
answered than you perhaps might suppose.
Though there has come no recent intelli.
gence from the heavenly city, and We seem
dependent upon the story of eighteen cen.
turtles ago, still I think We may from
strongest differences decide what are the
present occupations Of our transferred
kinsfolk.
After God has made . nature he nevee
eradicates the chief characteristics Of its
temperament. You never knew a man
phlegmatic in temperament to become
sanguine in temperament. You never
knew a man sanguine in temperament ia
become phlegmatic in temperament. Con
version plants new principles in the soul,
but Paul and John are just as different
from each other after conversion as they
were different from each other before con.
version. II conversion docs not eradicate
the prominent characteristics Of the tenn.
permanent neither will death eradicate
them.
You have, then, only by sum in sub
traction and a sum in addition to decide
what are the employments Of your de.
parted friends in tho better world. You
are 70 subtract from them all earthly
grossness and add all earthly goodness,
and then you are to como to the conclusion
that they are doing now in Heaven what
in their best moments they did on earth,
The reason that so many people never start
for Heaven is because they could not stand
IL If they got there if it should turn out "a
be the rigid and formal place some people
photograph 1t.
We like to come to church, but We
would not want to stay here to next Christ.
mas. We like to hear the Hallelujah Chorus,
but we would not want to hear it all the
time for fifty centuries. 1t might be on
some great occasion it would be possibly
comfortable to wear . crown Of gold
weighing several pounds, but it would be
an affection to wear such a crown forever
In other words, we run the descriptions
of Heaven into the ground while we make
that which was intended as especial and
celebrative to be the exclusive employment
of the Heaven. You might as well, il
asked to describe the habits of American
society, describe a Decoration Day or q
Fourth of July, or an autumnal Thanksgiv.
ing, as though it were a.. the time that
way.
am not going to speculate in regard to
the future world, but must, by inevitable
laws of inference and deduction and COM
mon sense, conclude that in Heaven we will
be just as different from each other as we
are now different, and hence that there
will be at least as many different employ.
ments in the celestial world as there are
employments here. Christ is to be the great
love, the great joy, the great rapture, the
great worship of Heaven: but will that
abolish employment: No more than loves
on earth-paternal, fiIial, fraternal, con.
jugal love-abolish earthly occupation.
In the first place, remark that all those
Of our departed Christian friends who on
L., - AkN -
now indulging their tastes in the same di.
rectlon. On carrn they had their gladdest
pleasures amid pictures and statuary, and
in the study of the laws Of light and shade
and perspective. Have you any idea that
that afIlueuce of faculty at death collapsed
and persisted: Why SO, whom there is
more for them to look at, and they have
keener appreciation Of the beautiful, and
they stand amid the very looms where the
sunsets and the rainbows and the spring
mornings are woven?
Are you so obtuse as to suppose that b.
cause the painter drops his easel and the
sculptor his chisel and the engraver his
knife, that, therefore, that taste, which he
was enlarging and intensifying for forty
or fifty years, is entirely Obliterated?
These artists, or these friends of art, on
earth worked in coarse material and with
imperfect brain and with frail hand. Now
they have carried their art into larger
liberties and into wider circumference.
They are at their old business yet, but
without the fatigues, without the limita-
tions, without the hindrances Of the ter.
restrial studio.
Do not, therefore, be melancholy among
the tapestries, the bric-a-brac, and the
embroideries, and the water colOrs. and the
works Of art which your departed friends
used to admire. Do not say: 81 am sorry
they had to leave all these things." Rather
say: ~ am glad they have gone up to
higher artistic opportunity and apprecia.